2% on pumpkin pie. and apple. 3% back on 4 trips to the airport. it's as easy as... -[ man ] 1... -[ woman ] 2... [ woman ] 3. [ male announcer ] the bankamericard cash rewards card. apply online or at a bank of america near you. good monday morning. i'm chris jansing. this morning both sides seem to be digging in on a fiscal cliff deal and so right now it's a stalemate. >> for right now i would say we're nowhere. period. we're nowhere. >> what are the chance we'll go over the live? >> there's clearly chance. >> tuning we'll get a deal by the end. year. >> do i. >> i think we'll go over the cliff. >> republicans are angry the president presented them with an offer they don't think is serious. but the president's new negotiating strategy is clear, don't give in. don't start with concessions. even as some republicans say they don't think they need to

put out any kind of formal proposal. let me bring in "the washington post" columnist and our politics reporter. good morning. so the headline in the "new york times" is pushing the gop to negotiate, obama ends giving in. and peter baker writes that president obama has emerged kind of a different style of negotiator in the past week or two, sticking to the liberal line, frustrating the republicans clearly. this is a strategy his base might like but i'm wondering will it make him a better deal maker? >> it just may mean that republicans ultimately give him close to what he wants on raising tax rates on the top 2%. president obama has been very clear, he was all the way through the campaign that he would not give in on that. so that's i think what's important now. republicans don't like a lot of what was in the white house's opening offer. they dictate the $50 billion stimulus that was in the offer as a slap in the face.

some of these little things we'll see taken out of file deal. >> to that point here's john boehner talking about when he saw that opening offer. >> i was flabbergasted. i looked at him and said you can't be serious. i just never seen anything like it. you know, we got seven weeks between election day and the end the year. and three of those weeks have been wasted with this nonsense. >> okay. >> it's clear he's not pleased from his ha. is the president in danger of going too far? >> no. i think that everyone is amazed that president obama is pursuing an absolutely normal approach to negotiation. people over the last two years got so accustomed to his strategy of almost preemptive concession, you know, you don't like this, i'll give you more. i'll give you more. what obama did is say look here's what i want.

this will solve the problem in my view and by the way we still don't have a recovery that's going quickly enough, we still need to goose the economy some. and the republicans are flabbergasted that he's not already making concessions and all he's asking for is okay guys, you say we don't have to raise the top rate, show me how you're going to do it with all these deductions many of which by the way are popular. you want more medicare cuts show me what you want and i think this is a perfectly normal negotiation and i was thinking on the way here, chris, you and i have an advantage in this. you and i covered albany, new york on the state legislature there, where you had a divided legislature, unbelievably contorted by budget fights and in the end they usually made a deal. it was complicated, sometimes it was ugly but they got to a deal. >> but they often got to it very late as you'll recall and state workers didn't get paychecks. >> this did happen. but they got there. and i ambiting more on a deal

than not. i think there are some compromise points, for example, raise the top rate almost to where obama wants it and fill it in a little bit with some reduction in deductions. that's not impossible to imagine. but i think the notion that the republicans don't have to put anything on the table, i think those days are over and it's time for them to say all right here's what we want. >> can't come as any surprise to the republicans no matter what they want to say about it the president wants to raise taxes and determined to raise taxes on the rich. it's one thing during the campaign he was specific and consistent on. it seems to me like they are even more upset about what they see his like of specificity on entitlements. let's play what we heard from his chief negotiator, tim geithner yesterday. >> we can't figure out what they need. they have to tell us. then we have to take a look at it and see if it makes sense for

the american public. >> when will we see people putting something on the table or is that not going to happen until like the 30th, 31st of the month? >> well, what i would say is in the white house's initial offer they did offer $400 billion in medicare cuts. and that is something that i think the republicans should actually like as a starting point because clearly the white house knows that they are going to have to go up from there. and bob corker the senator from tennessee who was also on "meet the press" yesterday has proposed some legislation that instead cuts $641 million out of medicare. we'll see some scale up in that direction. there are some things that republicans could like in that initial bid. >> let me bring in congresswoman karen bass. so you're hearing all the sides going back and forth but the one thing that everybody seems to just about agree on is that we're not getting anywhere fast. lindsey graham says we're going

over the cliff among others. what do you think? >> i don't believe we'll go over the cliff. i do think people are drawing a line in the sand which is a typical part of negotiation like your previous speakers said. i think that everybody understands the consequences, that the president has put forward a plan that would reduce taxes, or maintain the tax cuts for 98% of the u.s. public. and so i don't believe that my republican colleagues want to see taxes go up on 100% but they do need to come to table and counter the proposal. if they want changes and entitlements they need to say what those changes are. i know that where we all draw the line in the sand is that there's ways to find savings every where. however this is not the time to use the fiscal problem as an excuse to completely break the guarantee that we've had with the american public forde kids a. >> republican strategist john feehery. he said about the president, he's overreading his mandate by

doing the campaign thing. he is making the same mistake bush made in 2005. and of course he's talking about when george w. bush tried restructure social security, couldn't broker a deal in the home. is there a chance that the president is overreading the mandate, that we know the american people agree with him about taxes on the rich, but anything else is fair game? >> no. i don't think there's a comparison between those two at all. what bush made the mistake of is that the u.s. public does not support ending or privatizing social security. there have been poll after poll about raising taxes on the 1% of the u.s. public, the wealthiest. and poll after poll shows that close to 70% of the u.s. public agrees with that. there was no poll that ever showed that the u.s. public agreed with privatizing social security. >> most americans know that a big driver of the deficit and the biggest expenses we have are

entitlements. you said grover norquist house of cards may come crumbling down. is the bigger problem revenue or democrats not wanting to give big cuts on entitlement? >> no. i think the bigger problem is grover norquist if you want to know the truth. he's the bigger problem because he threatens republicans with primaries. so you had several republicans who expressed that they were willing to moderate their view and that they felt their most important pledge was to the u.s. constitution and not to grover norquist. what did grover norquist do? he took their quotes, called them up, he had conversations with them and he read them line by line their quote and essentially threatened them with primaries. he's the problem. if grover norquist wants to run government he needs to run office. >> you have people like saxby chambliss to indicate they were backing away from their pledge. grover norquist gets on the phone to them in the last several days and report of phone calls are that suddenly chambliss is going back a little

bit maybe on what he had to say. so, i mean, do you think that his influence has waned? >> this is exactly what i'm saying is that, and chambliss is who i was thinking about. he threatens people. i do think his influence is reining. i think there's a crack in grover's armor and that's why he tried to shore it up last week by calling up people and intimidating them. it's time we hold him to task. he should not be allowed to hold the republican party hostage like he has. it's very irresponsible. do i think there's enough republicans that are moderate enough that they understand the need to raise revenue. but the question is will they be able to step forward. the other question will john boehner lead his caucus or will his caucus lead him. if john boehner leads his caucus then he'll be able to identify 100 votes, 120 votes. he can come over and talk to the democrats and say do you have 100 votes, 120 votes that we can put together and get this deal

done. the question for the year is who runs this place, is it grover norquist, does john boehner run the republican caucus or does the republican caucus run him and how long will we allow grover norquist to hold the u.s. house of representatives hostage. >> congresswoman karen bass always good to have you on the show. let me bring you back in and talk more about grover norquist. you wrote that democrats could use their own grover norquist without making a single substantive concession republicans get loads of praise just for saying they are willing to ignore those old pledges to grover. you can give him props as a public relations genius. he's widely known in washington by only one name but kudos for openness to compromise should be received for republicans who put forward concrete proposals to raise taxes that are a lot of different pieces. there are a lot of different pieces out there. now some say grover is overt, others say that he is still

powerful. he says look, these members of congress don't make a pledge to me, they made a pledge to their constituents. what do you think? is he still influencing this debate significantly? >> well first kudos for whoever prepared that slide in getting the dollar sign right. but i think that in some ways democrats make too much of grover because, and he's a brilliant public relations guy. but republicans shouldn't get credit until they agree to raise taxes. and then they ask for the concessions they are looking for. and i think what you've seen from the president in the last week, which is why republicans are so flummoxed, okay i tried it the other way. he made a lot of concessions to john boehner right before the final agreement at the debt ceiling time in 2011. republicans should have taken that deal. the president gave them a great deal. now he said all right that didn't work so i'm just going hang tough here and i think what

i meant when i said that about grover, you're going hang tough if you're going to win a negotiation and i think you're seeing that now in a way you didn't see before the election, because the election settled some questions, particularly about a tax increase on the well-to-do. >> it was interesting watching discussions yesterday on "meet the press" about grover norquist and by the way grover norquist was a guest on that program. here's what claire mccaskill had to skay. >> i feel sorry for john boehner. he has to deal with the base of the republican party that grover norquist represents. i met him for the first time this morning. nice to meet him. who is he? why is he this guy that has captured so much attention in this? >> so why is he? do you think he's still relevant? >> well, he is, but back to what the congresswoman was saying a little bit earlier, does john boehner have control of his caucus.

is he leading his caucus or is his caucus leading him. the reason why you're hearing congressional leaders say they won't negotiate in public because some of these outside external figures do still have some power but they want to keep them at bay as much as possible and so even though we're hearing john boner and harry reid say they are far away from a deal that may not be true because they are negotiating behind closed doors. press conference after press conference we're seeing the market swing back and forth but really i think we may be closer to a deal by the end of the month than these leaders are saying right now. >> from your lips. thank you very much. great to see you two. >> good to see you. >> thank you. >> also today authorities are trying to figure out what drove nfl player jovan belcher to kill his girlfriend and then himself on saturday morning. friends and relatives of the couple said their relationship was strained and briefly lived apart last month but had just gotten back together. the two have a 3-month-old

daughter. belcher's team the kansas city chiefs held a moment of silence at yesterday's game. the head coach says the game was an escape from the pain. >> after talking with the captains they also felt like it was best that we play if for no other reason it takes your mind off our misery for a few hours, and so that's what it did. ♪ so will bounty select-a-size. it's the smaller powerful sheet. the only one with trap + lock technology. look! one select-a-size sheet of bounty is 50% more absorbent than a full size sheet of the leading ordinary brand. use less. with the small but powerful picker upper, bounty select-a-size. you won't just find us online, you'll also find us in person, with dedicated support teams at over 500 branches nationwide. so when you call or visit, you can ask for a name you know. because personal service starts with a real person.

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s. new york's mayor cory booker taking the food stamp challenge tomorrow. the man who is known for among other things shoveling snow out of constituents driveways and rescuing the homeless during flooding will start living on the monetary equivalent of a person on food stamps for a week. in new jersey that works out to about $133 a month or about

$1.40 a meal. booker is the latest politician to stand in solidarity with welfare families. let's meet another man who tried the same thing, phoenix mayor. what was it like to live on just $4 a day for meals? >> well, in phoenix the food stamp amount is $29 per week. and to live off of that and still try to live a healthy lifestyle with healthy meals is incredibly difficult. i had to skip a bunch of meals. ate a lot of ramin and beans and rice and lost a few pounds. it was tough. >> a record 47 million americans use food stamps in august. that cost nearly $72 billion. so when you hear about the fiscal cliff and you hear about possible cuts to entitlements, did this experience change your view of that? >> i would say it changed my view. look i've been someone that

wants to support the entire community no matter what neighborhood you live in, no market what your socio-economic background. i was challenged by a local nonprofit to take this challenge to make me a stronger leader and i happily accepted that challenge and it was a good learning experience. it was only a week. it's not the same thing of having to live on food stamps full time. that's brutally difficult to go jool your tummy isn't as full as it needs to be. i get that it was only a week. it helped me be a better policymaker. >> you kept a diary of your experience. i want to read a little bit of your entry from day four. i'm facing a long hungry day and an even longer night getting dinner on the table which requires making everything from scratch on this budget. it's only for a week so i've got a decent attitude. if i were doing this with no end interesting sight i probably wouldn't be so pleasant. so, in the end, besides the fact that you found out how hard it

was was there something that surprised you that you learned? >> yeah. i mean, look. it is tough to eat healthy on that budget. you know, there are a lot of food desert, a lot of places in cities across america where it's hard to get healthy fresh food and healthy fresh food can be experiencive. we want people to eat healthy. we want them leading healthy life styles. you know, this is a really difficult thing to do. hopefully it's temporary. look we hope and pray this economy is getting better, the job situation is getting better, there are millions of people on food stamps that were solidly middle class in the past and it's looking better and i hope and pray that congress reaches bipartisan compromise. don't send us over the fiscal cliff. do the right thing. be statesmen. reach a compromise. >> politico put some meal suggestions. this gives a perspective. for this food stamp budget you

can get one sandwich two two slices of store brand bread. two slices of cheese. that's $1.24. another option is seven ounz frozen fried fish plank. what's your reaction was when you did this from your constituents and what purpose does it serve for somebody like you or cory booker to do this? >> i got a lot of kudos for doing it. i admire mayor booker for taking on this challenge. don't give us too many can you dose. we only did it for a week. there are a lot of false stereotypes about people living in food stamps. that's not fair. that's not my experience. these are hard-working people. they don't want to be on food stamps. they want to get back into a job where they don't have to live on food stamps. any negative stereotypes should be put by the wayside. if you care about people and kids living on food stamps give money to your local food banks

so they can supplement the diets. kids can't learn if they don't have the right diet or tummies full. so that was one of my messages is use this as a positive experience, support your local food bank. we're all in this together. city phoenix is a city with a big heart. people of my city, people across the country will step up to the plate and help people in need. >> phoenix mayor greg stanton. thank you for taking the time to talk to us. >> any time. >> talk about a cool room to be in. president obama paying tribute to the 2012 kennedy center honorees. there's david letterman, led zeppelin, dustin hoffman honored for their contributions to the arts. the president had fun with led zeppelin and their lifestyle. >> there were some hotel rooms trashed and mayhem all around. so it's fitting that we're doing this in a room with windows that

are about three inches thick. and secret service all around. >> meantime looks like secretary of state hillary clinton has a new bff. here she is with meryl streep doing a cell to at the dinner and had a good time. both of them.

to politics now where nbc news has confirmed congresswoman debbie wasserman-schultz will remain dnc chairwoman. two sources say president obama will ask the dnc to sign off on his choice in january. everyone is waiting to see if the president will nominate u.n. ambassador susan rice to be the next secretary of state. she's had her defenders and detractors. both were on the sunday shows. >> it is terribly unfair that she should be the scapegoat for this when really the failures ought to be at the lap of the head of the intelligence

community that produced those talking points but none of these guys will say a word about david petraeus. >> when it comes to citizen rice, as far as lind jay graham is concerned i find great fault with what she said on 16th september and in other areas i find her lacking when it comes to being the best choice for secretary of state. >> former president george h.w. bush is still in the hospital. he may not be discharged until this weekend. the 88-year-old has been struggling with bronchitis and a cough. >> the president is meeting with the prime minister of bulgaria this afternoon. over the weekend he hit the links with former president clinton to fill out the foursome they invited u.s. trade rep and candidate for virginia governor. no cameras were invited. these pictures are from the last time they played together. the new members of congress are literally doing cartwheels in the aisle. not bad. that's a staffer, actually.

but the lottery for offices got pretty interesting. new members were encouraged to do a little jig or something for good luck before they select where their new offices will be located. >> speaking of new members it looks like the 80s are coming to congress. all four members born in the '80s will serve in the congress. they have come in to their own and now for the first time politico reports there will be more members born in the 50e8s than in the '20s. if you read only one thing this morning, this is the time of year for best of list. so my thanks to "newsweek" which has 12 books that flew under the radar but shouldn't have. including one that they call the scariest book you'll read this year. here's the thing, it's nonfiction and it's up on our facebook page at ♪

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clinton's future much she was the main speaker at the forum conference in d.c. friday night. here's part of a video that played when they were introducing her. >> someone who knows a thing or two about political comebacks. i can tell you i don't think we've heard the last of hillary clinton. ♪ >> i just have an instinct the best is yet to come. >> i prepared some remarks for tonight but then i thought maybe we could just watch that video a few more times. [ laughter ] and this the next time i can count the hair styles which is one of my favorite past times. >> so "the new yorker" was there. here's how he described it. there was much chatter about what clinton would do after she steps down from the cabinet next month. there wasn't much doubt about the ultimate direction. 2007-2008 was but a memory and

2016 was within sight. she's running. joining me now robert traman and joe sestak, democrat from pennsylvania. gentlemen, good morning. so congressman the article goes on the say a lot of factors could derail secretary clinton between now and 2016. obviously health, family matters, renewed clinton fatigue out there. but what would secretary clinton bring to the table now do you think as a presidential candidate that she didn't quite have maybe four years ago? >> right. obviously, chris, you know i think with the fiscal cliff coming down our pike right now that's what we should be focused on. to address your issue, i think that she's done a very fine job as secretary of state. but what i think she most brings and why i got to know her a little bit in the white house when i was director of defense policy is that when i had an issue, for example, on vets

matters, establishing a women's veterans memorial or trying to get the secretary of v.a. to pay more attention to orange tea she would host a tea and have people come together and then helped move the ball down the road. i can remember when i had seen her after my very first campaign, i hadn't even been sworn in wret and as we were coming back to washington she picked up the phone and said i have one call to make and when she was done she said you know i thought i should have won one of those precincts and it was a republican precinct and i didn't but i asked them to check the numbers again and by golly i won it. that type of, hey she really cares about the ground issues of people not just on the secretary of state level. i think it's something why i would say to anybody who asked me about her she's a very fine public servant. >> up saw that tribute video of benjamin nept net praising her. tony blair saying the best is yet dome. robert, what do you think would she be the republican's worst

nightmare? >> don't know if she would but she would dome the presidential race in 2016 if in fact she chooses to run with arguably the best political resume since george h.w. bush. take a look at george h.w. bush, he was president for eight years, director of cia, former member of congress. look at hillary clinton's resume. former first lady of arkansas, former first lady, former secretary of state, former senator. no question about it, regardless whether you're a republican or democrat you can say hillary clinton is a hard workers, she's tenacious, she's been around the block and would come to the white house with definitely a lot of experience. >> the other thing you could say about her is because of her role as secretary of state she's been able to sort of however above the fray. traditionally secretary of states don't get involved in

political matters. her role as the nation's senior diplomat discourages her from wading into domestic political matters that the tradition and etiquette. but the gag order will soon be lifted and i could make the case that's it's irrelevant any weigh marriage equality is a matter of human rights and not politics and she's powerful and beloved enough to say whatever she wanted once obama finally laid down his marker. so what do you think about that? do you think that there are maybe some policy problems out there that she's been able to stay away from as secretary of state? >> i think she has rightfully stayed away from them as secretary of state even the tradition not get involved in campaigns. that said, however, you know even better than i do her record on human rights, whether it was as first lady as she went to china or whether it's just when she goes out to places like india and sitting down and looking at women with microloan type of enterprises out, there helping them to make a good of

their life, as often the principal breadwinner for the family. she does believe in human rights. i think that as this society of ours has so well progressed including the military as we got rid of don't-ask, don't-tell that once she's back out there just as a person that she will see that the next step on this is to actually recognize this marriage equality issue and i think that, you know, to put words in her mouth is wrong for me to do. you can see across america particularly as the young grow up that it's something that doesn't matter to them not in the wrong way but everybody is equal which is what america is about. i think that's what secretary clinton is about. >> it's not too early for you republicans to be talking about 2016. there are reports in politico, for example, that governors bobby jindal, bob mcdonnell met privately with gop mega donor. funding is key. for people who is serious, seriously thinking about it, do

they have to get in this early now? we haven't even had the next inauguration. >> that's true. that's important. it's obviously very important for us to inaugurate our next president. it's not too early to start talking and thinking about 2016. another person you left off that list is jeb bush. he's quietly thinking about the white house but a lot of democrats are thinking about the white house as well. there's three elephants or donkeys in the room and that's obviously senator warner. there's governor cuomo of new york and vice president biden who hopefully has talked about running in 2016. both sides are playing this game not just republicans. >> all right, thanks to both of you. >> thank you. >> also making news a developing story in atlanta. fire officials say more than two dozen people have been overcome by carbon monoxide at an elementary school. everyone is expected to be okay

after being taken to the hospital. secretary of state hillary clinton says if syria uses chemical weapons against its own people the u.s. will act. there are reports indicating syria has been moving chemical weapons in the last couple of days. secretary clinton says their use would be a red line for the united states. the parents of an 8-year-old georgia girl say they want to warn other parents after their daughter was bit by a dolphin at seaworld and they caught it on tape. take a look. sfwhoo. >> the girl's father post this on youtube saying seaworld is trivializing what happened but seaworld said employees and health professionals attended to the girl immediately. and that they are taking the situation seriously. remember this picture that went viral last week. a new york city police officer giving a shoeless man a pair of boots in times square took the money out of his own pocket. the "new york times" said it tracked the man down and found him last night and he didn't have shoes on again.

jeffrey hillman said he hid the shoes because they are worth a lot of money and he thinks his life is at risk. he's grateful for what the officer did but he said the story went around the world and he would like a peace of the pie. >> one of the most profitable bond traders in on wall street is under investigation. we have on what's moving your money. >> reporter: good morning. the former goldman partner seems there is nor the story. he had left goldman after questions about his trading activity and now he's under investigation as to whether during his time at goldman he's his purchases or sales of treasury futures late in the trading day manipulated closing prices in the market and then in turn made some of his other trades more profitable. he is now head of global interest rates at morgan stanley. he's continue network there during the investigation but in the worst case scenario, chris, if he is found have violated exchange rules he could face

potentially i guess millions of dollars in fines and maybe even be barred from trading on the cme group. he's just under investigation at this stage. >> well for the rest of us in the real world apassengerly happiness has a price. a new study that says here's how much it takes to make the average person happy, right? >> reporter: right. i should also preface this by saying there's a lot of studies out there that tried to determine the so-called financial price of happiness. it also depends on what they look at, whether they look at wealth or income or various other things. the latest 2001 weigh on this is the wealth monitor. they found the global happiness income is $161,000 for the 13 countries surveyed. there was a wide range though, of answers depending on the country. dubai, those people need the most apparently to feel wealthy. they also said they needed

$276,150 very specific to be happy. singapore came in second place with $227,553 followed by hong kong. but here's an interesting fact for your, chris. the region with the most modest needs for happiness was europe. germans only need about $85,000 to be happy. that want places them in the lowest on the list. the french need $114,000, the britains need 133,000. >> what about americans? >> reporter: i don't know. those are the numbers we have. but germans at the low end. dubai at the top end. i'm guessing it would depend on, you know, how much you need to live in that country and it's expensive to live in dubai and singapore. >> how much can a plate of sausage and keg of beer cost? >> reporter: they have great beer. >> yahoo! is out with its list of top obsessions for 2012.

number five, honey boo-boo. the "hunger games" game in at number four fold by mega millions. political polls number two obsession and our top obsession this year, yes, it's apple and it's iphone 5. sfx- "sounds of african drum and flute" look who's back. again? it's embarrassing it's embarrassing! we can see you carl. we can totally see you. come on you're better than this...all that prowling around. yeah, you're the king of the jungle. have you thought about going vegan carl? hahaha!! you know folks who save hundreds of dollars by switching to geico sure are happy. how happy are they jimmy? happier than antelope with night-vision goggles. nice! get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

challenge the need for such heavy measures with olay. regenerist micro-sculpting serum for firmer skin in 5 days. pretty heavy lifting for such a lightweight. [ female announcer ] olay regenerist. if the more than $59 billion spent on thanksgiving shopping weekend is any measure, americans are feeling optimistic about the economy and about spending. at the same time studies show companies seem to be pulling back and taking a wait and see attitude given the budget stalemate in washington. so if consumers are happy, why are businesses so glum? let me bring in columnist with the atlantic who has written about this shift and president of twice research and a cnbc contributor. good to have you here for the

first time. good morning. let's start with businesses. what's fueling this seeming pessimism. >> businesses of much more focused on washington, on the whole policy issues around the fiscal cliff because they are trying to figure out their spending plans guessing what taxes will be. businesses are focused on if they spend x and taxed at y what's that going to leave them in terms of profitability. degree of which businesses have come off a really good four years where the rest of us have come off a more problematic four years. finally in this quarter partly because of the fiscal cliff, partly because of europe, partly because of slow down in china profits are more challenging for companies. but they are still making a lot of money. >> "wall street journal" study of 40 major companies half plan drastic cuts to their investments and spending into next. once a budget deal is reached, i mean whatever it is, do you think we'll see companies loosen their wallet? is there a bigger chance they

will slow down more? >> part of this is contingent how well consumers do. companies will spend money if there's this active healthy consumer base that justifies them spending money for more activities. so, at some point it's the consumer showing more confidence that's going dictate businesses feeling more confident. not the other way around. businesses can be confident. it doesn't trickle down -- >> does that mean continuing tax cuts for the middle class? >> yes, tax cuts for the middle class. yes, just clarity. businesses constantly complain about not knowing what's going on. part of that is an excuse, meaning it's much easier to say we're not doing so well because of that uncertainty in washington. there's a bit of truth in they want a clarity on what the tax rates will be. >> we know consumer confidence is at its highest. more persons plan to buy a home an appliance or take a vacation. and i'm wondering if this is

found sort of on things really are getting better or we're just so sick of tightening our belts, so sick of the pessimism, this year i'm going on acceleration. >> it's little bit of both. one of those survey, university of michigan, people are more confident about employment prospects than at any point since 1984. these judge people's change in feeling mono. you can't compare your feelings five years ago to today. it may be we look like we're feeling better but if you got someone in the room from 2008 they may feel worse. people are feeling more at ease. on the plus side the employment situation isn't getting better but it stopped getting worse. incomes are up a little bit. people have been saving for four years. they don't have nearly as much debt and rates are low. there's a lot of factors coming into this. the housing market is picking up. nothing like it was. but better than it has been in recent memory. there's a lot of reasons why

people in general are feeling better which doesn't mean there aren't 20, 30, 40 million people who are doing poorly. >> here's the $6 million question. here we have a situation where most americans are more optimistic, businesses are more pessimistic inverse to the last couple of years when businesses are optimistic and people were pessimistic. is one or the other a better gauge of reality? >> think so. the fact that businesses were optimistic didn't make the economy, didn't make people feel better about their future. it's really that, it's us, hundreds and millions of consumers driving things forward or holding things back that's going determine how business dose. so i think it matters a lot less whether businesses are feeling great or badly and it matters a lot more whether the collective of american society is feeling better and actually doing better statistically and materially. >> so one of the things we need to watch very closely about this fiscal cliff is it starts to make people feel afraid.

>> right now it isn't. it's a much more media washington business thing and it should be. i'm not discounting it. people are much more focused on this holidays, the pocketbooks and their own financial future. >> great to have you here. come back. today's tweet of the day comes from our own tom brokaw who writes kennedy center honors deniro, fey, m. freeman, kid rock. no one fell off stage or fiscal no one fell off stage or fiscal cliff. ♪ the weather outside is frightful ♪

♪ but the fire is so delightful ♪

nothing melts away the cold like a hot, delicious bowl of chicken noodle soup from campbell's. ♪ let it snow, let it snow a twilight wedding, watch out for flying bears and the pope goes hi-tech. who knew it was even available? a university of las vegas grad student said she is going marry twilight's edward cohen. actually it's a cardboard cut out of actor robert posing as

the vampire. she's doing it as a thesis project and has a commentary on the two sides of las vegas, the real and the fantasy. it was raining bears in hershey, pennsylvania, literally. almost 13,000 of them. an annual fundraiser for are the children's miracle network. fans were encourage tlod the stuffed anim bears on the rink. amazing show of support for a massachusetts woman fighting cancer. a flash mob was organized outside of her hospital room in boston. more than 200 friends and co-workers gathered into the shape of a heart so she could see it from her window. and pope benedict xvi plans to reach people like never before via twitter. that does it for this episode of "jansing and company." don was making a little reaction

to the pope tweeting. who thought thomas roberts? >> catholic guilt through social media. >> fiscal no. president obama and republicans in congress are digging in their heels on the fiscal cliff. who will blink first on this game of political chicken. we'll ask our power panel about that. and allison schwartz me as well. mitt romney licking his wounds over an election loss he thought would never happen. hats next for him and why he's not interested in hoping to remake the republican party. plus a bittersweet victory for the kansas city chiefs as the team and its fans try to come to grips with the senseless tragedy, what drove jovan belcher to kill his girlfriend and then himself. [ female announcer ] a classic meatloaf recipe from stouffer's

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